1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a combustion apparatus and a method of forcibly circulating a heating medium in a combustion apparatus.
There have been known methods of combustion and combustion apparatuses in which a heating medium such as sand, gravel contained in a combustion chamber is mixed with fuel and the fuel is fired.
However, when low calorific oil fuel containing much water and other materials difficult to burn used for an oil fuel combustion apparatus, a fair amount of cinders is produced. It is difficult to burn the cinders themselves without using an auxiliary expedient for burning in the conventional methods and apparatuses. In recent years, low calorific oil fuel has been widely used. Treatment of the cinders, therefore, has become a big problem. Particularly, in ships equipped with an oil fuel combustion apparatus, disposal of the cinders has been controlled from the standpoint of contamination of the sea.
2. Summary of the Invention
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus capable of burning cinders and so on produced from low calorific oil fuel in which before introducing material to be burned into a combustion chamber, a heating medium for continuously heating the material to be burned at such a temperature that the material fires itself, is forcibly circulated by using gas for combustion.
According to the invention, a combustion apparatus includes an upright type combustion chamber having a bottom, conduity means extending below and along the bottom of the combustion chamber and having a nozzle which passes upwardly through the bottom and opens into the combustion chamber, a ringed body supported in the combustion chamber with a gap formed between the lower edge of the ringed body and the bottom of the combustion chamber, air blasted from the nozzle passing through the ringed body, a heating medium contained in the combustion chamber. Particles of the heating medium blasted by the action of the nozzle from the lower part of the ringed body are circulated through the inner bore of the ringed body.